The Survival Diary
by Talster
Summary: Well, I'm finally here. Minecraft. The sweet land of creativity and survival that comes together so nicely. Except, I kinda don't want to be here any longer than I have to. Everything here wants to kill me. No amount of Minecraft Wiki could have prepared me for this. All I have is my Boy Scout skills, my wits, and...well, someone else.
1. Immersion

Chapter 1:

Immersion

I was passed out, in complete darkness. I heard someone screaming at me, and then painful liquids splashed against my entire face. I opened my eyes and flung out of my resting position to face my torturer and give him what for.

It was my mother, with a now empty glass of orange juice.

"WAKE UP!"

I quickly rushed to beat in my captor's face in with the nearest object I could find. I found a plush-like object and used it to attack the one who poured the acidic substances on my head.

"DROP THE PILLOW, AND GO TO SCHOOL."

I was quickly flung out of my holding cell with a bag of books and thrown out the door. Today was the first day after the first weekend of school. That means relationships that started during the first days of school, are now forming together, and many people are talking about their weekend.

I, however, did not form any relationships. Sad as it may seem, I'm not the one to fear social interaction and cower away from any organism that remotely looks like a human. In fact, I love social anythings. Except, no one wants to return the favor. It's not that bad, I've got friends. Penny, Chip, and Used Napkin.

Jokes aside, I have one or two friends. I have a friend named Guilson who likes to mock me about my social life, and more so about my love life. You can probably guess how I am with the ladies.

The other friend, is probably going to have to be Alex. Alex is a great stand-up guy, but he hasn't shown up to school, being home-schooled and all. I'm sure he's having fun with it, but he used to be my best friend, and even a mentor of sorts.

The school bus doors opened, and I waltzed in as fabulously as possible. I heard people snickering as I walked passed, but I ignored them. I sat down next to Guilson, who immediately started to make the newest sex joke of the day.

Wait, I haven't introduced myself yet, have I? I'm Tal. I'm pretty unique around here. I guess. What did that one book say about socializing? Oh yeah, I have to tell you some things about myself. I like girls, and Minecraft. I haven't played as much as I should've. Team Fortress 2 takes my time away. Why am I talking about Minecraft when I barely play it anymore? Well, Minecraft has become rather important lately, and I fear I am changing because of it. Mainly because Guilson made a private server for me and him to screw around on now.

But that isn't the whole reason. It's the main reason I am talking about Minecraft, but it's not why it's important. We'll get to that in a second.

School finally ended after a long period of time, and it was so mind numbingly boring that I was unable to write anything of it. I do think some chicks looked at me though. I am fearing the worst as I type.

Maybe some Minecraft will take a load off, I think. I'm not sure. Am I ever sure? I'm not sure. What I am sure of though, is the fact that I am madly in love with my newly built computer, and Guilson likes cheese balls better than Cheetos.

I rushed through the door, threw my bookbag on my bed and dove to my chair butt-first and booted up Steam. None of my GMOD or TF2 buddies were online to play, and neither was my Counter-Strike team. I decided to check my email, and what happened next, is out of the ordinary.

Spam.

No, really. Spam. That's not common for me. I've only used throwaway emails for most things, and reserved my real email for contact with friends and the things that needs my money. I've rarely recieved more than the usual penis enlargement pill ad, and even then, I've set email rules to block those emails. So, no more than a spam ad a month comes in.

This particular spam decided to come more times than one. In fact, it came into my email every day for a week now. I've set rules and kept it out, but it hasn't gone away. Usually, opening some emails and allowing the images to come in, also lets in various viruses and malware. But this email was totally blank, and came with only a text file.

Upon downloading the text file and opening it, all of my desktop shortcuts and folders disappeared, leaving a new wallpaper on my computer. It was a single grass block from the famous voxel-based survival game, but nothing like any wallpaper I've seen before. It seemed to glow, even more so than my actual screen brightness. There was a sense of unrealness to it. Maybe even surreal.

The text file read as follows:

"Dear Tal.

If you are reading this, you have gotten my letter: SEVEN, times. This letter is automatically sent on a daily basis until you read this to the fullest. I have an important task for you, an experiment of sorts. It's going to sound implausible, maybe even impossible, but I have finally made it work. I can finally send people inside any computer program. Not just that, I have been able to jury-rig a fully functional Minecraft game, that is in many ways different from the actual game itself. However, I will not tell you these differences, for it is up to you to find them out yourself.

Probably the most fun and scientific research I can get out of this is having more than one person in. For your benefit, I am adding one more person in on the third day. For your extra benefit, it will probably be a girl you know, probably not. It could be any girl. You'll have to trust me on this. The only other details I can give you is that she will be spawning on the exact same time and spot as you do.

Speaking of something I can't have from you right now, I also can't have your person in the game without your permission, which is something I can have right now. If you are willing to spend a majority of your time in a video game (which I am sure you will), please type the 'Y' key, if not, type the 'N' key, and no more emails will be sent.

In fact, type it here, actually. Right here: [ ]"

That was the email. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go in a video game, I was doing pretty well in school and all. But then again, was I ever sure? Probably not, but what I am sure of right now, is that I'll won't get a better chance than this.

[Y]

As soon as my finger left the 'Y' key my computer monitor shot a thunderbolt so loud and bright, my ears started ringing and my vision was completely white. After a second or two, I felt my body being raised from my chair and being pivoted so I was facing down at the ground. My ears were coming to, but my vision was still white as snow. I could hear gibberish from my computer speakers, and the speakers were about to break from the sound of it. My body started slowly moving forward as tentacles came out of my screen and...

_Tentacles?_ As soon as that thought processed, I was pulled into the computer at what felt like fighter jet speeds. When my velocity calmed down, another thought entered my head.

_Oh my God I'm drowning. _I was right. I was pretty sure about it. My eyes came to, but instead of white, it was blue. I could see a bit in front of me, but nothing five feet away in the water. I blew bubbles to see which was up, and started breaststroking to the surface as fast as my crappy legs and arms could pull me. I started fading after half a minute or so. I was really deep in the water. As soon as the darkness creeped in from the edges of my eyes to my center, I felt air. Sweet, beautiful air. I pulled on whatever I could find and heaved myself onto it, and started vomiting water from my lungs.

"I am NEVER, EVER, downloading random shit from spam. EVER. AGAIN." I said, after I regained my breath. Who was I talking to? No one. I knew I was going to get lonely, and I needed to talk to myself to keep me sane. At least until I found a pig or something. It's going to be a while until that girl shows up, if she shows up at all.

It was morning, on a sandy beach next to a huge grassy flat land. The beach was wide enough for miles if I were to walk along it, but I hate sand. I quickly decided that I would get to grass as soon as possible, and find a tree, and punch it. I drew a mental todo list in my head to match.

Find grassy land.

Punch grass until I understand the 'Mining' mechanic.

Find a tree.

Punch it.

Gather enough wood to make a small hovel.

Find coal and iron.

Make torches.

Find sheep.

Shear sheep.

Make two beds.

Neat. A perfect ten. I need two beds and enough space for comfort so me and whoever else is coming can have some rest together. I guess. I'm not too much for being romantic.

I also wanted to see if I was a blocky avatar, like in the game. I walked up to the water that nearly killed me and looked at my reflection. I'm not blocky at all, infact, everything about me was still there. I had the worst clothes possible for the situation too. My red Polo shirt and jeans quickly proved that the school dress policy isn't the best survival policy. But you gotta admit, Polo shirts and jeans look classy. My surfer dude blond hair was fully intact, albeit darker from the water. My incredibly shiny blue eyes were masked by the blueness of the water, but if I looked at the whites of my eyes, I could see it. I don't think there's anything else to say about me. I'm of average build, and just a bit more taller than average. That's it. I don't exercise too much or eat too much, and because of that I'm really skinny.

Eat. Huh. Guess I can't make a perfect ten. Add 'Find food and om nom nom it' to my list.

11. Find food and om nom nom it.

Right. Time to complete steps one through three. I sprinted over to the nearest tree in the grass and sat down beneath it to take any additional breaths that I needed after my near-death experience. I'm not sure if I respawn either. That would suck. I rolled my open hand into a fist and shot it into the grass as slowly as possible, as not to injure myself. The block had a small crack in the middle after I hit it. I felt the block hit my hand, but I didn't feel pain as I would in real life. It was very soft and grassy, not something I would complain about if I had to sleep on it. I punched it harder, and the crack in the middle grew faster and faster the harder I punched it. Eventually, I dug it up into a mini block version of itself, and it shot off into me. A small backpack appeared on my back and had the tiniest hint of something dropping into it come into my nerves from the leather straps on my backpack. If you paid _very_ close attention to it, you would feel it.

Step four. I punched the tree, and I could feel the wooden rough bark against my fist. I estimated that if I gave it my all, a block could be mined faster than the times estimated on the Minecraft Wiki. I grabbed the now mined wood block out of the air before it could rush into my new rucksack and placed it next to my feet. I used more log blocks to estimate my size. Two blocks, but I could see just a bit over the second block. Pretty cool that my size stayed almost constant with the game.

I quickly tore down all the other trees in the area and rested under the floating leaf blocks for a while until some saplings fell. I planted the saplings and took my three stacks of logs to a flat open area. I took my rucksack off and felt inside it for logs, and felt only four blocks. One being the dirt block, and the other three being the logs. Confused, I took the three blocks out and held them in my hand. They weren't much bigger than the palm of my hand. To my surprise, the three blocks had a shiny number engraved on each one. Sixty-four, to be exact. I crossed my fingers and set the tiny dirt block on the ground, and watched it resize to full sized.

I used my finger to write in the dirt a 2x2 grid. I placed a log in and...

_Thwpht_

Out came a wooden plank with a 4 engraved on it. Neat, again. So I tried to figure out how to get the blocks out, and it took me a while, but I figured it out. Attempting to separate a piece of the block from the other pulled out a duplicate planks from _inside the wooden planks of the same size._ if that's not cool, I don't know what is. I made a workbench and plopped it down in place of the dirt block. I made myself a wooden pickaxe and threw the pickaxe into my rucksack. Done. Now for the work.

Flicking the blocks also threw them on the ground and resized them to full static blocks. It took me an hour or so, but I managed to flick the wooden planks out of my hand in a way where I could rapidly build a foundation for my house.

I used the time to build a 10x10x5 house, which I assumed was big enough for me and the Girl for the time being. Finishing that, I took the time to admire my work and wipe the sweat off my brow. But then, disaster struck.

I accidentally built a log house instead of a wooden plank house. It was also getting close to night. No, wait, scratch that. It's night now. I could hear lots of growing in the distance, and I didn't want to deal with it. I rushed in the door-sized hole and blocked it up with planks. I rested the dirt block in the middle of the room and used it as a pillow.

_Groan..._

_ Clank._

I hate spam mail.


	2. Home Improvement

Chapter 2

Home Improvement

Today's the day! It's a big wonderful happy day! Day 2 of my survival so far! I have put together a bullet list of what I have learned from my slumber:

Zombies are scary

Skeletons are fucking loud

Creepers creep

Spiders climb all over my house

I think I heard a chicken

You should've seen the zombies burn. Actually, that wasn't too happy. Sure, I have found peace that the zombies are still blocky, but...they look like people I've met before. Not like friends or anything, but people I've made small talk to in lines at the movie theater or McDonald's or something. I remember this zombie. He was the fat guy who screamed at the poor fry cook for forgetting the pickles. This zombie looked just like him, but just a bit more skinny, because you know, hitboxes.

After washing my face with some water, I set out to find a cave or mountain. It honestly didn't take too long, because there's only so much flatland you can go through before you find something not-so-flat. So I eventually found a mountain with coal lining the sides of it. Using my trusty wooden pickaxe, I mined out some stone and used my workbench to craft an even trusty-er stone pickaxe. The wooden pickaxe will be fuel tonight. I almost feel bad for it.

I gathered around 30 pieces of coal (which made my hands and probably the inside of my rucksack very black), and a stack of cobblestone. I went back to my log hovel and crafted some torches and a furnace to put next to my workbench in my house so they can have some company. That's something I kinda need right now, but it's the second day, not the third. Hopefully the Girl can swim better than I could. Speaking of swim, that's something I did back home. I'm kinda missing home now, with Guilson writing some crazy sex joke or story, and...I don't know. I miss social interaction.

I went back to the evil beach, took off my clothes, and dove in. I swam around for a while and hoped would clean myself of whatever dirt I had on me. By the time I came back to collect my clothes, the water was significantly darker than when I came to the beach. My clothes also need an overhaul, something with a better chance of survival. I heard wool keeps 80% of your body heat, even when wet.

Wool clothing is something I really do need. There was a blizzard on the other side of the mountain and it was getting colder by the hour. I don't even know the body type of the Girl thanks to the mysterious note not giving me any clues. So, the Girl would probably get grabbed by tentacles through her monitor, dragged into cold water, swim up, and hit ice. She could be the sexiest chick ever and probably drown to death before I was done eating my breakfast.

I continued working on some tools and made myself an axe, hoe (heehee), shovel, and sword to keep my pickaxe company too. They're like a band of merry cobblestone, and I'm the band of Going Insane by the Second. To combat this, I have dubbed my dirt block Wilson, and Wilson keeps me company whenever I come back. Wilson is a really cool guy, like Alex but not a backstabbing home-schooler.

It was really cool crafting the set of tools though. If you knew how to craft them from the wiki, you just had to put them together on the grid and they would snap together with a loud PLOP sound, and you would have your tool. I mean, if you were trapped in Minecraft because of some spam email.

Suddenly, while leading a path of grass to Wilson so he could have hair, I heard a loud and low rumbling sound from my stomach. I suddenly leaned over in agony and clutched my stomach. I haven't eaten in a whole twelve hours. This needs to be rectified.

I drew my sword from my rucksack and went out to find the spider who bounced on the roof the entire night. Thankfully, the spider did not have a face of anyone I knew, except maybe the spider that fell in my water glass when I was drinking from it one night. It made a tsk sound, right when I jumped on top of it and spilled it's guts over the trees behind it.

That would've happened if I trained with my sword more. Instead, what really happened is that the spider bit out my leg while I flung my sword around in a desperate attempt to chop off it's leg. I did get the leg though, but my leg wasn't so good. I eventually killed the spider and took it's string, and went out hunting for it's cousins, and got similar results, except this spider was a bit dumber and decided to hop instead of going for my vital organs. Hopping is another thing I don't care for right now. After using my sword to it's fullest capabilities, I had enough string for a fishing pole.

I limped back to my shelter and laid some sticks down with the string.

PLOP!

They snapped together and made a fishing pole, and somehow a bobber too. No matter. A fishing pole is a fishing pole is a fish trap.

I went over to the accursed beach and flung my pole behind me and snapped it forward. The line went some distance into the water, about twenty feet, and the bobber rested on the surface. Wilson was with me to keep me company and for something to sit on, too. I waited for a minute or so, and my bobber went under the surface.

I jumped up off Wilson and snapped my pole back behind me. What I got was a faceful of fish coming back at bicycle speed. If you think 12 miles per hour isn't bad, wait until you get a fish coming at you.

Wilson was happy enough to rest my rucksack on him as I went through my supplies and made sure I was good to go after a couple of hours of fishing. I've caught a whopping pile of ten fish, and my stomach and I both agreed that it would be better than nothing. I can't wait until I figure out how to make grilled cheese sandwiches. Until then, fish.

As the fish was cooking on top of my wooden pickaxe, I took the time to remodel the log cabin into a wooden plank cabin. All of the logs I retrieved came back and crafted into more planks, for a better pyramid shaped roof. It looked better this way. I liked it. It just needs some windows and I'll be set.

I went to the beach and grabbed a dozen blocks of sand and lugged it back to my house. Dumping the sand out of my rucksack and shaking out any extra bits of sand from my hoe, I took my fish out and threw in the sand. The pickaxe was nothing more than ash now, but I guess ash could be used for something later. So I took it.

Then, while gnawing on a fishbone, I used my extra planks to craft a double chest and hold all of 'unwantables' for later use. Wilson can stay on top of the furnace. It's getting colder and colder outside the closer it gets to night. Which reminds me, I need sheep.

I went out into the grassy flatlands until I found a pair of sheep. I used my fishing pole to tie a knot around each of their necks, and pulled them all the way home. I used the rest of my planks to make sticks, and in turn, fences. I made a nice big grazing area for the two sheep to hang out and mate and make sheep babies for me to manipulate.

Wilson and I traveled back to the mountain and found some iron on the other side. I looked at the view of the mountain's backside and it was even foggier with snow and the wind was blowing harder this way. Biomes don't move, do they?

I brought the couple blocks of iron to cook, and I used the new glass to make windows. Honestly, this was much easier than I thought it would be, but I guess cutting my hands on the glass did suck a bit.

I took my sword and went out to practice on, well, anything, I'm looking for a fight, and damn it I'm going to get one. I need to get better before I encounter anything worse in bigger quantities.

My sword, Wilson, and I went out to go find some prey to destroy. I found a skeleton under a tree who shot me in the shoulder with an arrow, a creeper who blew the buttons off my shirt and probably pushed my organs to the back of my torso, and a zombie who tore up my arm. I am not a good swordsman, no matter how much six-year-old me thought I was. Still, I had experience with the four main things that want me dead. Experience is better than instinct, I guess.

I headed back home and set Wilson down on the furnace, and then I made some makeshift shears out of two iron bars, and sharpened the shears on a piece of cobblestone. I headed out the hole in my house and sheared the sheep to almost naked skin, and left some wool on them for the upcoming blizzard. The biomes are moving, and fast. The blizzard was a couple more blocks closer than it was this morning. This morning, I estimated the temperature to be about 80, now it's at 75-ish. Tomorrow, it might be 65 degrees out. That isn't too good for the Girl who may show up in a frozen beach.

I made a couple bed frames from wood and made some mattresses and pillows out of the wool I got from the sheep couple (who are apparently having a better time than me, working all day long). I threw myself into the bed and catnapped a bit. My house is turning out great.

Problem is, I'm about to share it with someone real soon. Bigger problem, I have no experience with girls. From all the Minecraft fiction I've read, the guy is usually some awesome jock brainiac who knows how to manipulate girls into marrying him somehow. I mean, you don't even have a priest. I can't even get a girl to tell me the time of day.

Yet, I sit on my workbench and think about her a usual teenager my age would think. Is she cute? Is she smart? Does she have boobs? Is she going to be friendly? Would she do her share of the chores I'm going to have every day? Will she be 21 or 8? I'm only 15, and I barely even make my bed. Doing these mundane tasks today nearly killed me. I cut my hands on the glass and nearly fell off the mountain I climbed for that last piece of coal. I bandaged my hands with leftover fish, but now I had extra wool to make bandages. My hands hurt like hell now. So I guess Minecraft in this world has specific types of damage, other than poison and fire. I can get cut and my limbs can be maimed, I've learned that much.

Nightfall was coming once again. I hate night. I ran to my chest and checked to make sure I had some fish leftover in the double chest, and then I crafted a door. 2x3 grid of planks sat down, and a mini door popped out of the workbench. I threw it on the empty hole in the wall, took off my rucksack and placed on it on the other bed, and put my sword by my own bed. I drifted off to sleep, dreaming of sheep and fish...

CLANK CLANK CLANK

Oh God there's a bunch of them. And I think I heard a spider humping my door.


	3. Looking to Impress

Chapter 3:

Looking to Impress

If I know anything about girls, it's that they have an unnatural infatuation for all things makeup related. If I know anything, I would tell you. I guess being rude works, and having muscles. But other than that I have absolutely no idea on how I could possibly accommodate a lady in my fine home. I already told you I was pretty socially inept, and that I like girls. This will end badly.

I called a house meeting to discuss plans on how to win the Girl's heart and live happily ever after or something. Wilson, the two lawfully wedded sheep (me being the pastor), whose names are Charlie and Mary, and finally, me. The guy who fell through his monitor into another world, and started his new life by getting attached to a grass block.

"I now hereby start this discussion." Hint: I can't be bothered to learn fancy words for discussions. "The topic today is 'The Girl and Why She is So Flipping Important.' By a show of hands, who does not approve of today's topic?" All of the board members were silent. "Good. Now, I have already made a bed for her, but I fear the house is too small. Therefore, you three will have to help me expand it for her. By a show of hands, who does not want to help?" Again, silence. I smiled. "Good. Court adjourned. We start work at noon."

By the looks of the sky, it was 11:00 right now. Also, the sky had very dark clouds. Not rain clouds, but snow clouds. I was freezing to death right now. I would estimate the temperature at 60 right now.

Besides the fact that I am busy freezing to death, I had all of my basic facilities in my small hovel. I had my furnace, workbench, chests, and the two beds right there looking all fancy. I liked my hovel. It just breathed niceness and warmth into the air. It was my protector, and it made sure I had a (somewhat) peaceful night, free from monster attacks. I think I'll name my house Dave. I like giving names to things. In fact, I named my pickaxe Chris, my hoe Courtney, and my shovel, Curtis. The axe is special. She's a real tomboy, just look at her. Look how majestic Charlotte is. I love my four tools. The C's. C's are love, C's are life.

Snapping back to reality, I find myself sitting outside on my fenced area with some rope I made from string. You don't have to stick to the crafting recipes, per se, but you had to do it by hand if it wasn't a traditional recipe in the game. The rope took ages to make, but the fusing was fine. I had myself a neat little rope, Jack, to lasso various things. Jack is a neat guy, but he won't keep secrets if you're doing anything wrong.

I need to socialize.

Wait, the Girl was coming today...right? What time is it? 11:30? I think I was created at noon, but I'm not sure. I hopped off my fence and walked over to the lake. I didn't see any squid monster pulling anyone out yet, but I didn't see a Girl. Shame.

Boredom quickly took over me. I took out some wooden planks and the rest of the string of the spider I caught doing naughty things to Mary. Tsk tsk tsk indeed, silly spider. I figured I would make a guitar and then- and once I knew how to build instruments- a piano. Making the guitar isn't all fun and games though. You gotta carve out the shape of the guitar and the hole where the sound comes from. I didn't have a pocket knife on me, but that would be pretty damn useful to have, right? Speaking of useful tools, I would probably need some goggles. I would need them to see underwater and find some caverns, but I'm not too prepared to spend a couple hours with my arch nemesis: glass.

Noon. It's time. I shivered a bit and rubbed my hands together. Chilly. Like, winter snow chilly. It's here.

BANG!

Another violent thunderbolt. I wasn't blinded this time, but the flash was so strong the fogginess of the entire lake was gone for several seconds afterwards. But, my eyes weren't looking for iron ore, it was at the giant behemoth of a squid this thing is. It reached into the source of the thunderbolt and grabbed something, and gently pulled out. The limp figure in it's tentacle grasp was hard to make out, but it was definitely a Girl alright. The Girl started waking up, and then immediately freaking out. Just like I did. Except, this time, the squid wouldn't let go.

I threw off my clothes, save my underwear, and grabbed my sword. Doing the best swimmer's dive I could, I dove until I felt the slimy skin of the squid. Opening my eyes let in the not-so-clean water, and burned my eyes. My lungs were starting to burn as well. I'm not the best swimmer on my team, to say the least.

The Girl looked at me with pleading eyes, eyes I could barely see, and motioned towards the arm before going limp again. I put the sword on the arm of the squid and grabbed his...forearm, I guess? Anyways, I started using the sword to saw on the arm as I would pancakes or steak. The arm came undone, and let the grasp of the Girl loose. The Girl started sinking with the arm, but Jack was here to give a nice tight knot on the arm and heave it with me. Me and my lack of oxygen.

My eyes started to blur and darken, and not in the fun way. I kicked and kicked until I reached the surface, and gasped for air. I pulled the arm and the Girl on the beach and sawed at anything that was still attached to the Girl. The Girl who wasn't breathing. My First Aid merit badge is finally going to come to use.

"One two three four." No bananas. I started doing compressions to the beat of Stayin' Alive, but after a couple verses, it was clear that the Girl isn't going to "stay alive" unless I did something drastic. Mouth to mouth. It wasn't drastic in the aftermath, but I flipped out about having to do it.

"One two three four BREATHE DAMMIT!" I cocked my head back and threw my head onto hers, breathing air into her. Something happened, I don't know what, but she vomited up the entirety of the water in her lungs into mine. It tasted like cherry lipgloss and seaweed. It was an interesting taste, but I was too busy choking it up to notice.

I eventually decided that I would like to lie down and cough up the rest of the water onto the ground. The very last bits of it, happened to be vomit bits that didn't resemble the fish I ate yesterday. Rather, it was more like frosted strawberry Pop-Tarts. Gross. She is going to have a lot more chores than she think she's getting to make this up.

More vomiting from the side of me. She gets to groom Wilson's hair now. Maybe even clean up after Charlie, or tend to Charlotte. Charlotte doesn't take care of herself that often.

It took us a while, but eventually we both stopped vomiting sea water long enough for us to look at each other. She was a sight for sore eyes, that's for sure. I'm not sure if her pretty looks would make up for the cherry lipgloss vomit I just ate today. But she was really cute though.

She had long flowing blond hair, which, at the time, was really wet and didn't look as great as it did hours later. She was relatively skinny, and had the bluest eyes you'd ever see in your lifetime. Her face just spoke, "White-knight me you bastard." I think I complied, but I've learned not to white-knight from previous experience.

She stared at me, shaking, dripping wet.

"Do, uh, do you need some towels or something?"

She slowly nodded.

"Haha. Don't worry, you're not the first to get raped by a squid. C'mon."

My charisma is infinite as it is unfounded. To further prove my point, she looked around in all directions, as if she was trying to find someone else, before slowly moving her head back to me, and nodding even slower this time.

Suddenly, it started to blizzard. From no snow to all snow, it quickly got bad, quickly fast.

I helped her up to her feet, and slowly shuffled back to the hut. Eventually, we got there, and she was blue and stone cold. I threw her (again) limp body on her special bed, and threw as many torches as I could on the inside of the house. I pushed the furnace next to her bed, threw in some logs I had from the log cabin incident, and lit some planks under it. She started turning pink, and the pinker she was, the more she moved, which was in the form of shivering.

I sheared the Sheeperson family and made some comforters to go over our beds, and threw it on top of her. She slowly pulled it over herself, and closed her eyes. The sun wasn't visible outside, but I gathered many hours passed. I took a couple steps outside, and found a pig a couple hundred meters outside my house. Taking hold of my sword, (named Dude), I slayed the pig and took its carcass back to homebase.

The Girl was now wide awake and sitting on the side of her bed, arms wrapped around herself. She only stared at me when I walked through the door, nothing else.

I chopped the pig up and threw it into the furnace, using the new charcoal as fuel. I laid back on my bed and stared at the ceiling, and waited for the pig to be done.

Once the pig was done, I threw its carcass on top of the furnace and cut out some porkchops. I made some bowls out of some planks and gave a bowl-full of porkchop to the Girl. She slowly fingered it and started to nibble on it, before engulfing the entire thing in one go.

"Hungry, huh?"

I swear, she jumped a foot or so at the sound of my voice. She located the sound, and nodded her head again. She made a drinking motion with her hands, and rested the bowl next to her on her bed.

"Oh, yeah. Water. I've been surviving on spider blood, long story."

She gave a terrible try at smiling and rested in her bed for a bit.

I attempted to push open the door, but it was locked shut with the sheer amount of snow blocking the door. I broke a plank next to the door and some snow fell into the house, probably enough to keep a parched family alive for a week.

I made some more bowls and collected the snow, then rested them on top of the still-hot furnace until it melted. I gave the Girl a bowl and one for me, and we slurped our water bowls until we fell asleep, porkchop and water in hand.


	4. A Brand New Day

Chapter 4

A Brand New Day

Okay. New day. Frankly, I'm scared. Really scared. I have never interacted with women much outside of the dating sims I may or may not have played. All that it did though, was alienate me from my guy-friends. That sucked. I don't even know how to cope with it. Alex, well, Alex is an incredible guy. He stuck with me and believed in me when no one else would. Guilson stepped in many months after Alex did, but he gets partial credit. That would be neat if I could have some guys here.

But thats not the point here. The huge point here is this chick here. I have resorted to calling her various names from the various Japanese games or visual novels I've played. Giving no citation to the names I have given her so far, except that these names were based on her being mute and/or cute/hot, She has earned herself the name Shizune, and-oh. Man. I'm not a weeaboo. That's great. I guess. I don't know. Does it matter?

No, I guess it doesn't matter. She'll talk, I'm sure of it. I hope. If she's mute/deaf or something this is going to get really kinky really fast. She can't be deaf though. She understood me talking and didn't try to use sign language. I guess she's not mute either. Too emotionally shocked or something? I guess being ripped from your friends and family would be a bit of a shock, but it hasn't bothered me yet. You know, no friends and all.

But I guess it did. Wilson has been my friend for the last three days here. I've been talking to him and my tools for the last three days and it's kept me comfortable. I felt needed by Charlie and Mary. It felt great. Now that the Girl is here, though, I stopped talking to the 'guys' in my shack. I kept waiting for the Girl to wake up. It's made me lonely. I can't stand it anymore. I feel like keeping my head underwater until I close my eyes for good. Or something. I swear, if this experience makes me emo or goth, I'm really killing myself. Or will that establish my emo and/or gothness? Do I just live in happiness to disprove it? So, if this experience destroys me, I will have no other option than just being forever happy. Seems about right.

Well, the loneliness problem is now gone. The Girl has woken up and twiddled her fingers around, and I think it's time for me to talk to her and stop talking to myself.

"Hey." She immediately perked up at the sound of my voice. "You got a name?"

She cleared her throat and began talking. "Jessie."

Holy shit, that voice was higher than I thought it would be. I've never been with women, but I've seen them on TV. Maybe they smoke too much.

"Great to hear you have a label. I'm Tal." I held out my hand to shake her hand, but I don't think my humor is doing anything.

It took her a while, but she finally accepted my hand and shook it softly.

"Where am I?"

"In a wooden shack right in the middle of Nowhere." She jumped from her bed, and then started to inspect every single thing in the room. Wilson, the furnace, her bed, my bed, the door, and even me.

"Isn't everything kinda...blocky? Except you. Am I blocky?" She panicked and looked at her hands.

The sight of someone checking themselves out to look for anything squared off looked kinda funny. So I laughed. Harmless enough, right?

Apparently it didn't go in her favor. She immediately backhanded me in the face with the force that could kill a horse. Heh. That rhymed. I'm a poet and I didn't even know it. But that's not the point right now. The point is, my face stings, and that's not a face a happy girl makes.

"Shut up! Where the hell am I?"

"Ow. That really hurt. Shit that hurt."

"You want another? Where am I?" She held me up by the collar of my genuine red Ralph Lauren Polo shirt, made with 100% real cotton. I knew something wasn't right with my shirt!

"Earth to Towel! Where am I?" She held me up high enough to choke me.

"Ack, put...me...down." She complied, thank whoever made her.

"Alright, fine, I'll tell you. You're in Minecraft, the game only six-year olds play now. Also, my name is Tal. Not Towel. Tah, ow. Tal. Happy?"

Nope. Not happy. She screamed in frustration and punted Wilson across the shack, somehow, and walked up to the door.

"I wouldn't open that!" I yelled after her. It's been snowing harder and harder.

"Try me! I'm going on my own!"

"Not the reason I was going for!"

She opened the door, and was immediately covered in snow. It took me a whole half-hour to dig her out and melt all the snow out of the shack. I'm not kidding. I was laughing the whole time too. Not a romantic chick, but a comic relief chick. I'm a happy camper.

After a while, we finally calmed down and managed to sit down without slapping each other. I got another bowl of water and started slurping it on my bed, making sure I didn't spill any on it in the process.

"Can you please stop slurping?" She complained from under her pillow.

"Nope, can't stop. It's a bowl, see? Made it myself, I'm pretty proud of it too."

"Can you at least make yourself a glass?" I froze in horror and fear. Glass? How dare she say that word?

"Woman! How could you?"

"What did I say?" She got up from her bed and stared at me as if I was a mental patient.

"Glass! That thing cut me over and over and over again! The only way to get it is from that stupid beach!" She froze at the last word in the sentence. Glad to see I'm not the only one with an irrational fear.

"Aha! Glad to see I'm not the only one with an irrational fear!" I proclaimed!

"Shut up. When does the blizzard end?" She rolled up in her blankets and curled up in the fetal position.

"Dunno. It's been going on a little before you came along. I was here for two and a half days prior to your visit here."

"Can't you do anything? I'm freezing." This chick complains a lot.

"Alright. Jessie. I have enough wool to make some clothes. Do you want a wool jacket or something?" She mulled over it for a moment, and nodded.

"Alright, come on. You're doing your own share."

I opened the side door out to the yard where the lovely couple were kept. Amazingly enough, there wasn't too much snow in the yard. The snow was blowing against our house, but not the yard on the other side. I still took the extra precaution of placing as many blocks of cobblestone to make it a fully housed facility.

"It's not as hard as real-life clothing making thingy. Heres the shears. Just cut some wool off. It's much easier than you would expect."

She gingerly took the shears out of my hand and started shearing the sheep. She jumped at the sight of the sheep instantly turning naked and some blocks of wool just popping out of seemingly nowhere.

"Haha! Gotcha! You thought it would be a lot of work!"

"Did not!"

"Did too! Look! Give me the wool. I think we have just enough for coats for the both of us. I've been saving it up."

We went inside and started making coats of wool to wear, and surprisingly enough, they fit perfectly. I'm sure that this place is a 'one size fits all' place, but I'm not going to switch coats just to try. Jessie was a good four inches smaller than me, but if she stood that hair up, she would probably be a good foot taller than me. Amazing how girls try to compensate.

"Great. A coat. I'm wearing cutoff shorts here! What do we do about that? We're out of wool!"

"You complain a lot. You're just not prepared like me. I'm a Boy Scout."

"Oh thank God. A Boy Scout. What're you going to do? Tie a knot?"

"Why are you so angsty this morning?" I said, trying to defuse the situation.

"Hmph. I didn't get any breakfast." She crossed her arms and made a pouty face that was really cute. It compelled me to make pancakes.

"Cute face, but we don't have pancakes. Or any food, at all. I can go out and find something to kill. It's not night, is it?" I checked outside my window. Nope, daytime. The snow is letting up though. I can see outside. Fantastic!

"Kill? Can't you just grow something or, buy something, or anything?"

"Hm, great idea. You can grow your own stuff. I'm going to kill a pig. I'll find some seeds or something. You want to come? You have a lot to learn. I'm not going to be the working man here while you take care of some kids."

"Who said anything about kids?"

"I did, just now. Didn't you hear? No kids. That means, you can't be a mom. That also means, that you can't sit at the shack all day. You're going to work. It's going to be fun!"

"Work? Fun?" She scoffed. "My daddy usually buys me whatever I want."

"That...explains a lot. So you're rich?"

"Yep. My dad operates a large portion of Ford Motor Company, in fact, he said his dad worked with Henry Ford himself."

"Ooh...I like Mustangs. Unfortunately, this is a place where there isn't any industrial anything here. Just rocks. Lots of them. Oh, there's trees too."

"I'm not working! Not one bit! Just wait until my daddy picks me up."

"You're going to call him...with a wet cell phone...in a different universe...to pick you up from an island...probably thousands of miles away from any other land? You're insane. I like you. I'm insane too. I went insane three days ago."

She grabbed her wet cell phone and pitched it at the side of the furnace. It splintered into a million pieces.

"Hey! We could've used that and built another one, you know."

"Doesn't matter. We're just going to die here anyways. I miss my old life." She flopped down on her bed. "I'll just starve to death."

"Aren't you just sunshine and rainbows. Well, uh, I'm going to be hiking out the door, and I'm not going to move a block to the side at all. So if you need me, just leave the cabin and go forward until you find me. Have fun complaining to yourself." I left the cabin and adjusted my rucksack. I blew warm air into my hands and rubbed them together. Hobo gloves. That's what I need.

"Wait!" She leaned out the door, shivering.

I stopped, turned on a dime on my heel, and said, "Yes? Changed your mind?"

She bit her lips for a bit, and said, "I guess I'll come with you for just a little bit."

I gave a half-hearted grin and began to set out. I had a stack of cobblestone and my tools. I was going to teach Jessie how to actually work. Oh joy.

We hiked for what I assumed was a couple minutes until we saw a huge grove of pigs. I'm not kidding, it looked like a whole dozen of them were just waiting to be slaughtered and made into delicious bacon. I knew better than just to kill them, though.

"Even the pigs are blocky? This is insane." she said.

"I don't know how you're still surprised after the shit you've been through. I mean, you vomited up cherry lipgloss crap into my lungs when I revived you. I should be complaining!" I punched the air in mock anger.

"Well, sorry about that, but I was busy drowning in the tentacle grasp of death." She spat at me in retaliation.

"Right...the drowning incident...that I rescued you from...it checks out." I made a checklist in the air, and checked out each invisible box as I went along.

"Alright, fine, you win." She crossed her arms in protest. "Do we slaughter the pigs or what?"

"Nope, we're breeding them."


	5. A Brief Moment of Peace

Chapter 5

Mommy Pig and Daddy Pig

"Hold on...what?" Jessie said.

"Well, you see, when a mommy pig and a daddy pig love each other very much..." I said, making my index fingers kiss each other.

"Stop. I know how, they straddle each other and go to town. Don't patronize me. I'm fifteen. If anything, I'm probably older than _you._" she said, accusingly.

"I'm fifteen, born November 30."

"Shit. December 12." she folded her arms and looked away. "Look, I'm tired and I want to go home. _My _home. Not that dump you call a shack."

"I'll have you know it's made with only the finest of wood. Besides, I don't know if we can go home. Important thing is, we need to bring these pigs back to the shack so they can make lots of bacon babies. Lots of wonderful bacon babies, so we can have bacon. Not too much of a fan on pork chops though."

"I hate bacon." Jessie stated, bluntly.

"I can't say I'm not disappointed, but that's what we're going to get. Now help me herd these pigs."

"How do you herd a mob of pigs without any rope or a dog or something?"

"Easy. I think this would work." I took my backpack off and rummaged inside, and came back up with a bundle of wheat. This little bit of wheat came when I was bored and was waiting for Jessie to wake up. Suddenly, as I picked the wheat up, all of the pig's necks snapped towards me. You could literally hear their necks snapping as they turned to look at the item of interest. They didn't die, oh no. They were overpowered by the Wheat.

"Tal, they're..._looking _at me." she said, looking more than slightly put off.

"Yes, that's how eyes work." I rolled my eyes and started to make another joke, but something out of the ordinary started to happen.

The pigs stampeded. Like, went as fast as a car you would see on the Autobahn. That kind of fast. They came as fast as they could. Then, I had an idea. An idea that Jessie appreciated a lot.

"RUN!" I screamed, grabbing her forearm and dashing off as far as I could from the stampede. Jessie was very light. Someone who didn't work out, but also someone who didn't eat very much. Anorexic? Probably not. She's pretty rich, probably some crazy diet thing. Diet was the last thing on my mind, unless it was an all-meat diet.

The sound of my screaming mixed with Jessie's screaming, but it did very little to quiet the stampede that was behind us. Jessie did, however, attempt to make the entire episode better.

"Get off of me, you pervert!" She swat my hand off, and seemed content with being on the ground, until she realized how good the seat on the SS Tal really was. I knew she couldn't run fast, I mean, I play video games all day, but I do parkour and that sort of stuff. I can run. A girl who sits in a private school all day with her billion dollar solid diamond iPhone can't run. So I dropped my rucksack and threw the Wheat in as I ran towards Jessie, but then something slightly curious happened.

The pigs stopped stampeding. Jessie's screaming, however, did not stop. She curled up in the fetal position, attempting to block most of the damage of the now non-existent stampede. I ran up to her and tried to help her up, but only succeeded in getting the pervert treatment again.

"Are...are you...crying?"

"N-no, I'm just having...having a thing right now!" She screamed at me, tears welling up in her eyes.

I was going to make a joke about the 'thing' thing right now, but those tears weren't pouty tears, they were tears of emotional pain locked away. I've had that pain before. I never liked that pain. That is a story for another time. Something that shouldn't be kept for another time, is a class on teaching me how to tell with girls.

"Uh, are you okay? We only had a herd of pigs come after us." I crouched down next to her and sat down.

"Go away." She said, hiding under her cotton coat.

"Uh, sure. Got it." I got up and pulled my sword out, and then proceeded to knight the pig at the front. I rested Dude on the Knight and told him to take five along with the rest of the pigs. He turned around, oinked back at the rest of them, and they all sat down as humanly as possible. Weird little pigs. I sat down next to the Knight and passed some Wheat around the group. I counted around 10. Not 12, or even 50. Funny how stampedes make it seem like there's more.

I heard a sniffle from Jessie's direction, and took it as a cue to sit next to her. From what I know, Girls like to speak in subtle clues that they think you WILL know. That's all I know.

"How..." Sniffle. She's got herself a runny nose or something. From the snow. Haha. Snow. Same snow that was in our house.

"How did you talk to them? The pigs? You understood them, and they understood you. And you did the thing with the sword and the..." She looked off into space and started crying again.

I sighed and looked off into space as long as I could. Eventually, it got close to night, and the pigs were busily humping each other, much to the Knight's dismay.

"Jessie. It's nighttime."

She sniffed really loudly this time. A final sniff. "I know."

"Don't you want to go back inside?"

"Yeah."

Dave was within eyesight; it wouldn't have been hard to get there from here, but it took ages to get Jessie to get up and shuffle to the shack. After getting in (and closing the door just in time for a skeleton arrow to hit the back wall), we cozied up in our individual beds and listened to the pigs procreate for the last time tonight.

"Jessie?"

"Yeah Tal?"

"I think we both know that you and I are wired the same. Your software just isn't the same."

"What do you mean?" She turned from her bed and looked at me, and for the first time, it was a look of genuine interest, the only other emotion I've seen other than tired or angry. Or, y'know, crying.

"We're set up the same, you see. I grew up in a public school, and you most likely grew up in a private school. We've been through different experiences, but we still got the same thing out of it. Got it so far?" She nodded. "Good. So, I don't know about you, but I used to cry a lot back in the 7th grade. About how I had no friends. No one would want a playdate with me, so I would cry, and examine people from afar. I got extremely good at finding out their personality. Then, I went home to draw shitty pictures, or write up something angsty, or even play video games. Then I played video games all day after school. No friends or anything like that. Do you know what happened?"

"What?"

"I gave the world the finger, and I just generally accepted it. I wouldn't let my social ineptitude keep me from living a normal life. So I kept on playing video games, and I got a bunch of these cash prizes from tournaments and stuff my mom took me to. So I built computers every day, but I would just keep on tinkering with my computer as soon as I was done with my schoolwork. I kept making it the best I could. Eventually, I've dropped more than five thousand dollars on it, and it's got all the space in the world, it starts up instantly, and it renders videos super fast."

"What has computers got to do with pigs?"

"I worked with what I had, until I had it at my best. And when I had it at the best it could be, everything was right. I eventually got some friends from school that played the same stuff as me, and my social skills got a little better, but I still understand people to the tiniest bit. And my diagnosis is that we're the same, but you haven't given the world the finger yet." Having finished that, I smiled at her and winked. I don't know why, I just did.

After I winked, she looked up at the ceiling and started bawling again. She must've cried for around five minutes. They felt like hours though. Crazy how time works.

"Jessie, usually I would tell you that you don't have to tell me, but you really need to let it out."

"For fucks sake Tal! I was going to let it out!" She said, quickly replacing the teary face with one of pure hatred. She looked at the space in front of our beds, and immediately started to cry again. She rubbed her face on the pillow and took a bunch of deep breaths. Then, she replied.

"You were right. I grew up in a private school. Everyone was so cool with their expensive everything. Believe it or not, I wasn't the prettiest girl there. I didn't care for the fashion styles that could exist outside the school uniforms, and I just wasn't into the stuff they liked. I never had any friends because I wouldn't listen to Kesha or stuff like that. I listened to some weird stuff. Like music from Scattle. Weird tense dark music. I didn't listen to that damn twerk music. I listened to what I wanted." She drew a deep breath.

"I didn't give the world the finger. I pretended to like all that music, and I did my hair in that part everyone did. I sat in my seat, like a good little girl, and I just went on. No one wanted to be my friend still. They didn't forget. But now, I think I'm ready to flip the world off. Thanks Tal. I never thought I would say that. I just needed to vent that out." She turned back to me and smiled. A real smile, for me!

I smiled, and then looked up at the ceiling, and took both of my arms out of the blanket. I slowly drew them up to the air, the highest they could go, until they were all the way up. I then gave the finger to the world, on both of my hands. Jessie giggled, and then copied me. We broke into laughter that made the skeletons stop drawing their arrows, the spiders to stop spinning their webs, the zombies to hold up, and the ticking of the creepers to stop. One creeper felt peace that night, a lot of peace. So much that his eternal stare finally broke into a grin, breaking off parts of his face in the process. I saw his smile, and I saw him lean on the door, closing his eyes. It was finally time for some well-deserved peace. The ticking stopped.

Jessie and I kept on giggling the whole night through. We told stories of our loneliness and shitty social skills, and how they always got us into trouble, but we never stopped flipping the world off. Not once. We kept on giggling until we passed out, listening to each other talk, and the pig pornography that was going outside.

The monsters had peace that night.


End file.
